Mexico To Sign Oil Reform Today

When Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto signs a new oil reform into law Friday, it could mark a turning point for Latin America’s second-largest economy, one of Mexico’s leading energy officials told CNBC.

“It’s a magnificent reform,” Mexico’s Energy Undersecretary Enrique Ochoa said in an exclusive interview. Along with many other energy experts, he thinks the law will lead to an increase in oil and gas production, as well as lower energy prices.

The law will change three articles of the nation’s constitution, thereby allowing foreign investment and production-sharing agreements in Mexico for the first time in more than 70 years.

The reform was necessary because the country’s oil and gas model had shown “signs of exhaustion” for years, Ochoa said.

“Oil production had been declining. Gas production had been declining as well. We used to be self-sufficient in natural gas, and now we’re importing a third of our consumption from the U.S.,” he said. “We are importing 50 percent of gasoline in Mexico. We are also importing 65 percent of petrochemicals.”

Mexico’s daily oil production has dropped to 2.5 million barrels from 3.5 million. The problem is not a lack of oil, however, but a lack of money. Mexico produces nothing from the deep waters (below 500 feet) of the Gulf of Mexico, while U.S. producers turn out more than 300,000 barrels per day from that depth in the Gulf.

via CNBC

Content is for general information purposes only. It is not investment advice or a solution to buy or sell securities. Opinions are the authors; not necessarily that of OANDA Business Information & Services, Inc. or any of its affiliates, subsidiaries, officers or directors. If you would like to reproduce or redistribute any of the content found on MarketPulse, an award winning forex, commodities and global indices analysis and news site service produced by OANDA Business Information & Services, Inc., please access the RSS feed or contact us at info@marketpulse.com. Visit https://www.marketpulse.com/ to find out more about the beat of the global markets. © 2023 OANDA Business Information & Services Inc.